Beyond the fiction of Alborada – II

By Sarath Chandrajeewa

(Part I of this article appeared in Satmag of 04 Dec.)

Allegations about Chilean Ambassador

In his book ‘Memoirs’ Neruda openly admits to having sexual relations with a Tamil female labourer, engaged in what was considered the lowest of professions in society of the time, while he was the Chilean Ambassador to Sri Lanka. Though he was honest in writing about it, the act itself depicts the inhuman, forceful qualities of higher officials, and the low esteem they had for women.

However, without citing sources, Tissa Abeysekera in his book ‘Ayale Giya Sithaka Satahan’, had written a verses about Neruda’s dalliance, with an intense enthusiasm for literature; ‘The great poet, the Nobel Prize winner who loved a scavenger woman in Wellawatte’ (Tissa Abeysekara. [2017]. Ayale Giya Sithaka Satahan. Sarasavi Publishers. Pp.252-254). In it the poet frees Neruda of blame, neglecting to consider the women’s right to free will and sexual coercion on the part of Neruda. He frees Neruda because he is impressed by his prestige. If Neruda’s admission is investigated, it would be obvious that he never mentions love in his declaration.

The poet behaves as if he is about to catch a prey. He tries to bring her into subjugation by making gifts. The woman, who is powerless, knows that she would not be able to fend off a well-built white skinned man. He compares the frightened woman lying with eyes wide open, bereft of any emotion, to a thousand-year-old south Indian statue of a woman. He only sees her body. He cannot empathise with her internal shock. He uses her as a lifeless form to satisfy himself. He has written that, that was the first and the last time he laid with her. He does not say anything about what happened to her afterwards. It can be concluded that she most probably ran away or hid somewhere. It is confirmed sexual assault, because she had not returned and they did not get together again. The following statement by Neruda could be used against him, regarding the sexual assault. The following is a translation.

“My solitary bungalow was far from any urban development. When I rented it, I tried to find out where the toilet was; I couldn’t see it anywhere. Actually it was nowhere near the shower, it was at the back of the house. I inspected it with curiosity. It was a wooden box with a hole in the middle, very much like the artifact I had known as a child in the Chilean countryside. But our toilets were set over a deep well or over running water. Here the receptacle was a simple metal pail under the round hole.

The pail was cleaned every morning, but I had no idea how its contents disappeared. One morning I rose earlier than usual, and I was amazed when I saw what had been happening.

Into the back of the house, walking like a dusky statue came the most beautiful woman I had yet seen in Ceylon, a Tamil of the pariah caste. She was wearing a red and gold sari of the cheapest kind of cloth. She had heavy bangles on her bare ankles. Two tiny red dots glittered on either side of her nose. They must have been ordinary glass, but on her they were rubies.

She walked solemnly toward the latrine, without so much as a side glance at me, not bothering to acknowledge my existence, and vanished with the disgusting receptacle on her head, moving away with the steps of a goddess.

She was so lovely that, regardless of her humble job, I couldn’t get her off my mind. Like a shy jungle animal she belonged to another kind of existence, a different world. I called to her, but it was no use. After that I sometimes put a gift in her path, a piece of silk or some fruit. She would go past without hearing or looking. That ignoble routine had been transformed by her dark beauty into the dutiful ceremony of an indifferent queen.

One morning, I decided to go all the way. I got a strong grip on her wrist and stared into her eyes. There was no language I could talk with her. Unsmiling, she let herself be led away and was soon naked in my bed. Her waist, so very slim, her full hips, the brimming cups of her breasts made her like one of the thousand year-old sculptures from the south of India. It was the coming together of a man and a statue. She kept her eyes wide open all the while, completely unresponsive. She was right to despise me. The experience was never repeated.’ (Memoirs by Pablo Neruda – Hardie St. Martin [Trans]. [1977] Penguin books. Pp.99-100).

Investigation

Based on personal interviews with members of low caste communities that lived along the seashore (Bambalawatta), between Wellawatte and Bambalapitiya, in the 70s, and in particular a family (father, mother and son) who cleaned the toilets at the Government College of Arts and Crafts, at no.46, Horton place, Colombo 7, in 1975, 45 years after the incident, this writer came upon certain information which could only be attributed to Neruda’s above statement.

A young attractive girl of ‘Cakkiliyar caste’ (Neruda referred to it as Pariah caste) suffered from a psychological disorder. She talked very little, liked to live alone and sat silently looking at the sea most of the time, symptomatic of her disorder. Due to her father’s illness, at the age of 18, as the eldest in the family, she was sent to clean the toilet at the Bungalow of one of the colonial officers, in Wellawatte. People of this caste never sent young girls to clean latrines, only males and married women. House owners kept an empty container or tin with a few coins on the doorstep of the toilets, as payment.

In 1930, she was raped by the owner of the Bungalow. A young male relative of the girl made an attempt to attack the white officer with a dagger, which he used to cut areca nuts, at the seashore, when the officer was out on his morning walk from Wellawatte to Mount Lavinia. His bodyguard or caretaker counter attacked. As a result, the relative lost consciousness and broke his spine. The bodyguard was a fearless muscleman from down south. People called him ‘Mahakalu Sinhalaya’’ (black Sinhala Giant). Paralysed and bed-ridden, the relative suffered for the rest of his life. ‘Mahakalu Sinhalaya’’ was probably ‘Burampi’ in Neruda’s book. When Neruda left the country this man also left with him.

The young girl was married off to a very elderly person in the community by her parents, because she lost her virginity. Within a short period the elderly husband of the young girl died of alcohol poisoning. He probably drank too much because he was so delighted with his beautiful young bride, or perhaps out of grief.

People of this caste usually drank methylated spirits mixed with lime juice. There was a rumour in the community that the woman was unlucky and born at a malefic time. The family of the relative who was paralysed also blamed the girl. At her husband’s cremation the young girl flung herself into the fire and committed suicide. Some interpret this incident as ‘Sati pooja’. Some said that relatives motivated her to do so. The worst tragedy is that she jumped into the fire with her unborn child. According to the beliefs of this community, a widow who commits ‘Sati pooja’ becomes a goddess. Afterwards people of her caste never mentioned her name and forgot her altogether.

This community was brought into the country, from Andhra Pradesh, in India, by the colonial administration in Ceylon, for cleaning services in the city of Colombo, and lived along the seashore. After the expansion of urbanization, the Non-Aligned Conference in 1976 and the coastal belt restoration programme, this community moved into marshy lands between Peliyagoda and Wattala. They originally spoke Telugu or Andhra Tamil. Sri Lankans refer to this language as ‘Andara Demala’, also a derogatory term for something unintelligible. They were impoverished and lived with very few amenities, in slums. They were considered untouchables and encountering them was deemed a bad omen by those hailing from high castes. Therefore, they went to work at dawn and during the day they stayed in their slums. Knowledgeable people in the community called themselves ‘Arunthathiyar’ meaning ‘the People of the dawn’.

Pablo Neruda (1904-1973)

Pablo Neruda, the internationally acclaimed Latin American poet, was born on July 12, 1904 in Parral, Chile. His original name was Neftali Ricardo Reyes Basoalto. Pablo Neruda was his pen name, which he legally adopted in 1946. He was the son of Jose del Carmen Reyes, a railway worker, and Rosa Basoalto. His mother died within a month of his birth. He entered the Temuco boys’ school in 1910 and finished his secondary schooling there in 1920. Neruda was a voracious reader and was encouraged by the principle of the Temuco Girls’ School, Gabriela Mistral (1889-1957), a gifted poet who would herself later become a Nobel laureate.

From 1927 to 1945 he served as Chilean consul in Rangoon, Ceylon, Java and Barcelona, and wrote prolifically. Neruda fell in love with a Dutch woman, Maria Antonieta Hagenaar, when he was serving as a consul in Batavia, presently Indonesia. He and his wife separated in 1935, and Neruda met a young Argentinian woman, Delia del Carril, who would be his second wife, until their divorce in the early 1950s. Matilde Urrutia Cerda was the third wife of the Chilean poet, from 1966 until his death in 1973. His only daughter Malva Marina Reyes, was born in Madrid in 1934. She died in 1943 when she was nine years old, having spent most of her short life with a foster family in the Netherlands after Neruda ignored and abandoned her, forcing her mother to take up what jobs she could. She suffered from severe health problems, especially hydrocephalus.

Neruda became known as a poet when he was 13 years old. His creative work varied considerably in style and included surrealist poems, historical epics, prose, autobiography, political manifestos and passionate love poems, such as those in ‘Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair’. Colombian novelist Gabriel García Márquez (1927-2014), once introduced him as ‘The Greatest Poet of the 20th Century’. Neruda was a world recognized symbol throughout his life. He had been active as a Chilean poet, diplomat and communist politician.

Neruda was greatly influenced by events of the Spanish Civil war. He was elected a senator in 1945, and also joined the Chilean communist party after World War II. Two years later he was expelled from the position of senator and a warrant was issued for his arrest when President Gabriel González Videla outlawed communism in Chile, in 1948. He lived in hiding and in 1948 left Chile, crossing the Andes Mountain by horseback. During this period he visited the Soviet Union and various other countries including the West European Communist bloc. From 1970 to 1973 he served under Salvador Allende as Chilean ambassador to Paris.

From then on he regarded poetry not as an elite pursuit but as a statement of human solidarity which addressed simple people. ‘Canto General’ (one part of which is ‘The Heights of Macchu Picchu’, translated by Nathaniel Tarn) is a poem of epic proportions, tracing the history of Latin America, evoking the grandeur of its landscapes. It also introduces political polemic. Always a prolific poet, Neruda continued to write poetry throughout the fifties and sixties, and in 1950 he was awarded the International Peace Prize, in 1953 the Lenin Peace Prize, and in 1971 he was awarded Nobel Prize for Poetry.

The Chilean army toppled the democratically appointed President Salvador Allende’s Marxist socialist government on September 11, 1973, and came into power. The coup was led by General Augusto Pinochet. Neruda was hospitalized in Santiago at that time as he had undergone surgery for prostate cancer. Twelve days after the coup, on September 23, he died. The reason for his death was not clear as there were several conflicting opinions. One was that he died of a heart attack and another was poisoning by the army.

At a time meetings and demonstrations were banned and thousands of people were in custody, a massive number of Chilean people turned up at his funeral.

Neruda is often considered the National poet of Chile. However, his poems have been popular and influential worldwide (Mark Eisner. [2018]. ‘Neruda; The Poet’s Calling’. Harper Collins publishers; Alter Alexandra. [August 5, 2015]. ‘Rediscovered Pablo Neruda poems to be published’. The New York Times).

Violating women’s rights and sexual harassment

In November 2018 the cultural committee of Chile’s lower house planned to name the Santiago Airport after Neruda. Several Feminist and human rights groups demonstrated against this plan demanding that he not be revered in such a manner. They read notes that Neruda had written and accused him of sexually assaulting several women at the foreign ministry office (Charis McGowan. [November 23, 2018]. ‘Poet, Hero, Rapist – Outrage over Chilean plan to Rename Airport after Neruda’. The Guardian).

Research papers, psychological analyses and articles about Neruda’s perspective on women have been published (Zizek, Slavoj. [1994]. ‘Courtly Love or Woman as Thing’. Leitch publishers). These papers interpret that he perceives women with a male supremacy. This psyche is reflected in words used in current society to refer to women, such as ‘baduwa’ or ‘kella’ (a good or a piece). Areeba Tayyab, analysing Neruda’s ‘Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair’ claims that he objectifies women (Areeba Tayyab. [2020]. ‘Tracing female objectification in Neruda’s work: a psychoanalytical study of courtly love in Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair. Department of English Language, Superior University, Pakistan. European journal of Interdisciplinary Research. Vol 1,No. 1, Pp.21-28).

During a demonstration on university students’ human rights and sexual harassment, Karen Vergara Sánchez, an activist student has said, “There is no clear reason to rename the airport, and it is happening at a time when women are only beginning to dare denounce their abusers…we have started to demystify Neruda now, because we have only recently begun to question rape culture” (Charis McGowan. [November 23, 2018]. ‘Poet, Hero, Rapist – Outrage over Chilean plan to Rename Airport after Neruda’. The Guardian). In a further attempt at demystifying Neruda, it is being questioned whether Neruda is suitable to receive international awards such as those for peace and justice. Likewise, it is being questioned, through Neruda, whether the real life of an artist and his works of art are one and the same. It is ironic to find the answer in his own poems.

“If you ask me what my poetry is, I’d have to say: I don’t know.

But if you ask my poetry, she’ll tell you who I am.”

Pablo Neruda, 1943

(chandrajeewa@gmail.com)